‘Are you trying to increase my anxiety levels, Xanthos?’
‘No, I’m giving you the facts.’ He fixed her with a speculative look. ‘Or maybe you’re someone who doesn’t like dealing with facts?’
‘I’m a lawyer.’
‘Ah.’
‘Go on,’ she goaded. ‘Say it.’
‘Say what?’
‘Make one of the many terrible jokes about lawyers which I’ve heard a zillion times before.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ He slanted her the glimmer of a smile. ‘Scoring points strikes me as something of a time-wasting exercise when we should probably be thinking about the night ahead.’
The night ahead. Cold and dark and miles from anywhere. Bianca drew in a deep breath as, once again, icy fear crept over her. ‘How are you proposing we get out of here?’ she croaked.
‘We wait for someone to rescue us.’ He glanced out of the window, where night had fallen, the thick snow clouds masking the stars with a dark mantle. ‘Though I don’t reckon it’s going to be tonight.’
Bianca found herself wondering what lay out there in the impenetrable darkness and, despite the overcoat she was wearing, she gave a convulsive shiver. ‘But how can we expect someone to rescue us if we haven’t got a phone signal?’
‘I sent out an emergency call just before I brought the plane down. They know we’re here. We just have to be patient, Bianca. And survive.’ His voice suddenly became harsh. ‘That’s really the only part which matters. That we make it through the night. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
His narrowed gaze was edged with doubt and Bianca knew she mustn’t crumble. She mustn’t let him see she was vulnerable, or scared—even if she was. She needed to be strong and independent—just as she’d been throughout her life.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said, but suddenly it was very hard to stop her teeth from chattering. ‘So what’s the best way of ensuring we do? Survive, I mean?’
He reached over to grab a miniature bottle of whisky from the desk. ‘Most of all, we need to keep warm.’
‘I don’t think drinking’s a very good idea,’ she said repressively. ‘Isn’t it counterproductive if we try to escape the reality of our situation by blotting it out with alcohol?’
He looked as if he were trying not to smile. ‘I have no intention of hitting the spirits. I prefer my drinking companions to be a little less prickly around the edges. I was intending to use the Scotch as fuel—to help me start a fire. But first, I’ll need to smash up those old chairs.’
She frowned. ‘Isn’t that criminal damage?’
‘Technically, I suppose it is. Let them sue me.’ His black eyes glinted as he headed for the door. ‘Who knows? You might be called on to litigate in my favour, Bianca.’
Unsettled by his sarcasm, Bianca turned away as he went outside to demolish the chairs—smashing them against the stone walls of the hut, judging by the deafening noise he was making. But the jarring sound which had broken the silence of the night was the wake-up call she needed to shake her out of her shock. She couldn’t allow Xanthos to do all the work, could she? For a start, it was much too cold to sit still, and maybe the gnawing fear which had taken root at the pit of her stomach would dissolve if she started being active and thought about something else.
She needed to consider how they were going to spend the long night ahead, and somehow that disturbed her almost as much as their isolation and the icy temperature of the room. The narrow bed seemed to be taunting her with all sorts of dangerous possibilities—and throwing into stark relief some of her own insecurities. She didn’twantto think about the fact that this was the first time she’d ever contemplated spending the night with a man. She bit her lip. And that the circumstances couldn’t be more bizarre.
So she set about keeping herself busy, shaking out the soft cashmere blankets Xanthos had brought from the plane and thinking what a contrast they made, laid out over the ancient mattress. Next she examined the selection of food he’d brought back from the plane—which was bizarre to say the least. She was just hunting around in her suitcase to locate her toothpaste and some clean underwear for the morning, when Xanthos returned bearing a commendable pile of firewood and suddenly she was stricken with embarrassment, her fingers closing over the little scrap of black silk, in a vain attempt to conceal her panties from him.
‘Oh,’ she said, her expression as self-conscious as her words. ‘I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.’
He kicked the door shut with more force than was necessary. ‘You thought the night so pleasant I might want to linger?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said, stuffing the panties back inside the suitcase.
Xanthos put the wood down beside the fireplace, trying to forget what he’d just seen, telling himself he didn’t give a damn what she wore next to her skin.
And you are a liar, taunted a mocking voice in his head.Because of course you wanted to know and now you do.Black and silky and lacy and surprisingly brief. Briefs for the lawyer. How appropriate.
The bland smile he offered her was supposed to reduce the sudden drying of his mouth, but unfortunately it did no such thing. Nor did it go any way towards alleviating the sudden aching at his groin. ‘We need to build a fire,’ he said roughly, perplexed by the effect she was having on him and wondering why he was so attracted to her. Because she wasn’t like the other women who came into his orbit. She didn’t bat her eyelashes, or simper, or smile. She didn’t throw her head back and giggle uncontrollably whenever he said something mildly amusing. On the contrary. At times she seemed almost to be judging him—and not in a particularly positive way. Yet her green gaze was a temptation as well as a challenge and, no matter how hard he tried to fight it, he couldn’t deny finding the tiny woman powerfully attractive, though he’d barely spoken to her before she’d been foisted on him today. He hadn’t even asked her to dance at the reception last night and that had been a deliberate omission, despite her being the most beautiful woman in the room.
Was that because he’d known it made sense to keep his distance from someone unknowingly related to him by marriage? Or because some bone-deep instinct made him suspect that to touch her would be to make him lose his mind and, ultimately, control? And control was an essential component of his make-up. Once, it had been taken away from him and he had vowed it would never happen again. Which was why he always needed to be in charge. To be the decision maker. It was one of the elements of his character which had made him so successful in business. The same element which had left a litter of broken hearts behind him, because most women failed to understand the futility of attempting to control or to change him. They had an inability to accept him as the man he was. Instead they tried to tie him down and stultify him with a domesticity he had no appetite for.
Crumpling up one of the magazines, he laid it in the grate, wondering how he was going to endure the hours which lay ahead, unable to blot out the images which were streaming into his mind with disturbing clarity. Ofcoursegetting up close and personal with Bianca would make the time pass more quickly, but that wasn’t going to happen. He was stuck here with her for the foreseeable and didn’t intend saying or doing anything he might later regret.